The Fox is guarding Halliburton

I'm much heartened that the Defense Department is investigating Halliburton, aren't you? No doubt Rumsfeld's minions will agressively ferret out all wrongdoing by this company that the Vice President recently headed, right?

Bombshell?

The report, a few days ago, by sixty eminent scientists berating the Bush administration for distorting and ignoring science to support its ideological agenda went nowhere, buried beneath stories about Martha Stewart's trial and Sex and the City. But today's blockbuster, that senior Pentagon advisers have told the Bush White House (in a suppressed report) that global warming is a fact, and that it can cause imminent catastrophe to the planet--that's got to get some traction, right?

Let's see.

And then there's the refugee problem

Of the thousands of Kurds who Saddam displaced from their homes around Kirkuk as part of his "arabization" policy, and who now want to reclaim their homes, displacing thousands of arabs; and the thousands of Shiites in the south whom Saddam "relocated" after the Gulf War, who are also returning to their homes.
When these factions clash, what will our forces do? Watch?

Senator Levin's obsession

With finding out whether the administration purposely withheld intelligence about Iraq's WMD sites from the UN inspectors has finally borne fruit. Turns out the CIA (could this be Tenet's doing, or Condi's, or Rummie's--or Bush's?), gave the UN only some of the suspected sites, holding back 20.

Why would they do this? Simple.

"[Senator Levin] said he believed that the Bush administration had withheld the information because it wanted to persuade the American people that the United Nations-led hunt for weapons in Iraq had run its full course before the war."

No other explanation is possible--not from an administration that vowed to do all it could to find WMD and to root out terrorism.

This is another in the long string of egregious misdeeds by Bush, the warmonger.

Your reaction?

More newspapers, including Aljazeera, are reporting that Osama is trapped. I'm curious. Are you rooting for him to evade capture, or am I alone in this?

Small comfort

Apparently the universe is going to last for a long time. I wish I found this more comforting, but I'm sure with Bush at the helm, our race won't be around to celebrate the 30 billionth year anniversary. Maybe not even the next year.

Chasing Osama

The Pakistanis and US troops are scouring the mountains frantically to find Osama before the American elections. They've got his whereabouts pinned down, apparently, and are closing in.

I've tried to find a way to say this so that Ashcroft and his ilk aren't alerted to the extremity of my views, and here it is: I sure hope we catch bin Laden, I really, really do--the day after Kerrey's inauguration.

Who's running this ship?

The Economic Policy Institute, in an article describing Bush's backpedaling on his recent economic report (and if there be any doubt, it was called "The President's Report" and was signed by him, and was created by the President's Council of Economic Advisers) predicting a huge increase in jobs during 2004, points out that even the pundits are wrong about the import of that report. It doesn't say that there will be an increase in jobs of 2.6 million this year; it predicts an even greater increase. As the Institute points out,

"On page 98 of the Economic Report of the President for 2004 that was released on February 9, the CEA predicts that non-farm payroll employment will average 132.7 million in 2004, reflecting a 2.6 million increase in jobs over its estimated average of 130.1 million in 2003.

"There has been substantial confusion concerning this issue, with many analysts and stories incorrectly suggesting that the CEA projects a total of 2.6 million jobs to be created this year. In effect, these reports are stating that the CEA has predicted there will be 132.7 million jobs at the end of 2004 when, in fact, the CEA has predicted that the average number of jobs for all of 2004 will be 132.7 million. To reach this average figure, there will have to be many more jobs than 132.7 million in December 2004, as there are 2.5 million fewer jobs than that right now."

According to EPI's calculations, to meet that goal Bush will have to create 5 million new jobs in 2004, or an average of 460,000 per month. No wonder he backpedaled. That's in impossible goal, especially since during the first month the job growth was a disappointing 112,000.

Makes you wonder if those folks in the White House have any idea how to run this entity called the United States.

The Bremer Backpedal

Well I guess we all knew you can't package up democracy like Meals Ready to Eat and ship it over in a C-130. This is bullshit. Iraq doesn't want American style democracy and it is never, never going to work. Bremer is Sancho to Bush's Quixote, and the whole bunch of them are fools. Our troops are dying in abject futility. God save them.

Yahoo! News - Bremer Says Iraq Elections Not Possible for a Year

Trust me, says Greenspan

What the hell does Alan Greenspan know about jobs? He's a money-lender, nothing more. He has the temerity to say, in obtuse phrases, as usual, precisely what Bush's Chairman of Economic Advisers recently said more bluntly (and caught intense flak for), namely that loss of jobs due to foreign outsourcing is the necessary price for eventual greater economic prosperity.
From what source, exactly? When, exactly? How, exactly? No answers, only a vague pointing toward the past, when the US economy created jobs to replace those that were lost.
But nowadays we have an administration that seeks no new solutions. No exploration of new energy sources, no spurring of environmental efforts, no credits for industries that seek new solutions. Instead, a cold-grip reliance on the ever-concentrating industries and their wealthy bosses.
Why should we trust this system to create meaningful employment for the millions who've lost even meaningless jobs? Why should we trust Greenspan, for God's sake. He's the architect of the program that's cost us our economy.

Status of Forces

This article is the first that details the situation facing the Pentagon as Iraq becomes politically independent of the US. It's amazing how little is known, how much is beyond the control of Rumsfeld/Bush/Cheney and is to be decided by Iraqis (if, of course, we simply don't force them to adhere to our will). This has got to drive the NeoCons crazy!

Check out this spin

The Miami Herald headline of an AP story reads, "Weekly jobless claims fall sharply," and the lead of the story recites figures from the Labor Department showing that new unemployment claims "plunged" by 24,000 claims, from 368,000 to 344,000. The article's next two paragraphs tout this decline as greater (by 7,000) than predicted by some economists and so forth.
Buried in the middle of the story, however, are these figures from the same report: The number of unemployed rose by 106,000, to 3.2 million people. Unemployed, it should be noted, is defined as persons actively seeking employment. So, while the new unemployment claims "plunged" by 24,000, the number of actual unemployed "rose" by four times that much.
Are there insane persons in the basements of AP and this newspaper, who simply choose what verbs to use from a random list, and how to cant a story, or is this recasting of data by design?
You decide.

Another class war

Until today, I thought the "where was Bush in '73?" issue wasn't a Viet Nam issue, so much as a question of Bush's credibility, of his obfuscation in explaining his National Guard service and thereby sounding like a "typical politician."
But now the Republicans have countered, beginning to wage their campaign against Kerrey with questions about his loyalty because of his anti-war stance in the seventies. So, now the battle between the two candidates (Bush and Kerrey) may indeed become a war/-antiwar question, of both the decades-old war and the present one. To which I say, "Bring it on."

Chuckle?

This is a quote of our Army commander in Iraq, declining to speculate on a projected departure date of US forces:

"Actually, the things we've sat around and talked about before have been wrong on every count," he said with a chuckle. "So that's probably another reason why I don't want to" discuss it. Although he did not mention it, U.S. officials had assumed when Baghdad fell to U.S. forces last April that tens of thousands of troops could be withdrawn within a few months.

President Bush declared on May 1 that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, but within weeks the number of American troops killed began rising, from 29 killed in June to 46 in July; the highest monthly total since May was 82 in November. The number of wounded also has been rising.

Right on, Jesse

This editorial by Jesse Jackson about the contribution of Howard Dean to Democratic politics, and to the direction of this campaign, states my views exactly. We owe Howard Dean the victory over Bush that now feels inevitable.

And you wonder why the Republicans are thought of as the party of business

Take a look at these amazing numbers, showing the profits of corporations during 2003. Historical highs in almost all sectors, while our soldiers, as well as Iraqis, Afghanis and Africans die in droves, and the US middle class drifts further into debt.
November cannot come soon enough.

a prayer ...

our young patriots ... go forth

Why Is My Co-blogger Getting Pissed Off?

Relax and do your calisthenics, Citizen Erik. All is well:

The Division of Victorious Statistics of the Department of Perpetual War announced again today that our forces continue to inflict unspecified, commendable damage on the presumably gathering threat of our inscrutable enemies, thus bringing unending credit to Big Brother.

Wouldn't it be delicious

If Tenet (head of CIA) and Jacoby (head of DIA) get pissed off enough to tell the Iraq-Intelligence Commission (and for that matter, the American public before the election) precisely how the Bush administration manipulated their intelligence for political purposes? Remarks like this one by Richard Perle may just do it.

Scientists, Nobel laureates line up

Against Bush. We've got to get rid of this monster.

I'm getting so pissed off

I can't stand it! Aren't we, as US citizens whose funds and votes are supposedly supporting Bush's adventures, entitled to know how much they cost in financial and human toll--both ours and the enemies' and the innocents? Apparently not, and so neither we nor our allies, nor our potential victims, will know the true cost of our actions. This is an intolerable state of the nation, of the world.

Which one is Tweedle Dee?

The New York Times has compared the announced positions of Edwards and Kerrey on major issues. I gotta say, except for a few glitches of expediency, I'll take either one. Actually, both. Don't they look like a winning ticket?

The Texas souffle

That's the nickname Bush picked up during his service in the National Guard because he looked good on the outside but was full of hot air. The more recent version, posted by my co-blogger some months ago: All Hat and No Cattle.

The pundits are idiots

I'm listening to the TV commentators discussing the close race in Wisconsin between Kerrey and Edwards, most of them telling us that this result leaves the Democrats in trouble because their candidates will have to continue to spend money and will be broke in the face of Bush's millions.
I disagree. The Wisconsin vote is the best result the Democrats could hope for. It generates interest in the campaign, occupying headlines and drawing interest of potential voters of the next two weeks (until Super Tuesday) at least. And there's this, the two candidates are a "traditonal" liberal and a southern populist. One is going to win--and one might be vice president. This is the optimal result, in my mind.

Gaps In Bush's Guard Records

I'm not sure that Gaps In Bush's Guard Records are relevant 30 years later. We've seen his character in the last 3 years. He's a "war president" in a sense applicable to none of his predecessors. We are a nation at war like at no time in our history. Is anyone happy with the way things are going?

Don't jeer Aljazeera

Ocasionally, in my posts, I cite Aljazeera, the Administration-maligned Middle East news agency that carries stories not commonly reported in the US. According to the Pacific Views blog, the NYT has presented a balanced article about Aljazeera dispatches, which emboldens me to point to this story about the Shia clerics' reaction to Bremer's threat to veto the general law if it contains a clause that enshrines Islam in the constitution. Suffice to say, they're not pleased.

A "must read" that you must read

Quotes from "The Princess Bride" and "Casablanca" (two of my favorite movies) highlight this telling, incisive commentary on Bush's true motivation to attack Iraq. From some left-leaning site? No, from BusinessWeek Online.

What's more delicious than delicious?

A lawsuit by a federal prosecutor against Ashcroft for screwing up a terrorist prosecution? It doesn't get any better than this.
I can imagine (I really can) the relish with which the prosecutor's lawyer drafted the complaint. Almost makes me want to get back into the business.

The American Empire

Let me get this straight. Having thrown off the yoke of British imperial rule a few centuries ago because it sought to impose its will on the institutions of our various colonies, Tribune Bremer now claims the power of veto over provisions of Iraq's national constitution.
The adoption of an Islamic-oriented basic law, he contends, may cause subjugation of women. Certainly I understand his concerns. But the evolution of American-style of democracy has been just that, an evolution, not an imposition.

Imagine if, two centuries ago, a foreign nation had imposed on us its demand that we give women the right to vote (which, it should be recalled, we didn't extend for the first one hundred years of our "democracy")? How would we react? With adoring deference, or with rebellion?

And the lies just keep on coming...

The projections and predictions of the Council of Economic Advisers for 2004 are so unrealistic, so wholly out of whack with actuality, that they can only be called lies. There's a legal concept that includes in the definition of fraud a statement made "with reckless disregard of its truth." Check out this analysis of Bush's latest "economic message" for an example.

Class warfare

With Bush wooing Nascar dads and the Religious Right, and appealing to those who would amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages, it is he, not his opponents, who has declared war, leading those who have no class against those who possess it.

Cheney's a liar

What could be clearer?

From the Miami Herald.

"Cheney, opening the administration's drive for public support for Hussein's ouster, said in an Aug. 26, 2002, speech that 'firsthand testimony' from defectors had disclosed that Hussein had resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

"Those defectors, Cheney said, included Gen. Hussein Kamal, Hussein's son-in-law, who fled to Jordan in 1995 and was murdered when he returned to Baghdad in 1996.

"Cheney's assertion, however, conflicts with Kamal's comments in an interview conducted by Rolf Ekeus, the then-head of a U.N. weapons inspection program.

'''All weapons -- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear -- were destroyed,' Kamal said, according to an official U.N. transcript of the Aug. 22, 1995, session.

"Cheney's office did not explain the apparent discrepancy."

Another -gate?

That small-print story a year ago about the US intelligence service spying on our allies' UN delegations during the Security Council's deliberations on the invasion of Iraq may blow up again. The head of the Mexican delegation, whose office was bugged by us, is writing a book in which he contends that our spying scuttled the attempt by our allies to find a compromise to invasion.

Oh boy oh boy.

On the other hand...

Some weeks ago I posted a entended list of reasons why Bush was unbeatable in 04. Money, incumbency, a compliant press and so on.

This post goes the other way, listing the impressive number of vulnerabilities that Bush faces in the next ten months. 1. Jobs. 2. Valerie Plame-gate. 3. AirGuard-gate. 4. 9-11 gate. 5. WMD-gate. 6. Continuing deaths in Iraq. 7. Budget deficit. 8. Trade deficit. 9. Declining dollar. 10. Halliburton-gate.
I'm running out of gates. Any others?

Consumer sentiment

Last month, the Administration touted the 10-point increase in the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index as a strong sign that the economy was heading upward. This chart shows the path of the Index since 2000, and it does indeed show a strong dip, with a strong rebound in the last few months, culminating with an eleven-point gain, to 103.8, in December.
Imagine the Administration's chagrin when, in the latest report, the Index fell by ten percent, giving back all but one of those points.
Consumers are wary. Of the economy, of their own prospects and, no doubt, of Bush.

Economic idiosyncracies

I just heard a report on PBS about the unprecedentedly high cost-to-profit ratio that American corporations were presently enjoying. Unprecedented since records have been kept, by multiples, a result of the astounding "productivity" of American workers. The latter, other reports have said, is a function of the amazing stretch of workers' capabilities due to technology, to extensity of effort, and to cost saving measures by employers. Also unprecedented.

Unprecedented too is the level of American consumer borrowing, federal borrowing, trade deficits, federal deficits, acquisition of US debt by foreign investors and governments.

The gap between rich and poor in the US is at its height. The level of taxation of corporations is at its lowest ever. Indeed, there isn't a statistic in this economy that's mid-line or moderate.

I'd like to find an economic macro-analysis of these and related phenomena--a view of the overall--not just more day-by-day stock market digests. There's something very large at work in the American system, isn't there?

A Longer, Harder Slog

This month's drop in consumer confidence was "surprisingly deep." Is the American public catching on?

Baghdad seething

Riverbend, author of the Baghdad Burning weblog, has been silent for a few weeks. Now we know why.

I was offline for a few brief periods recently while I was visiting my family, while I was changing ISPs and so forth. But not because a member of my family was kidnapped for ransom.

How little we know about life in Iraq. How far from our lives theirs are. How far from democracy, US-style, that nation is.

What were we thinking when we, with ignorant arrogance, decided to impose our view of the world on people who haven't lived under it?

Tom Vilsack for President (or Vice President, anyway)

This speech by the Governor of Iowa is straightforward, bold and right on. If only he had a national forum, such as the one the media repeatedly gives Bush, so that Americans could learn, deep down, how distorted this Administration is.

Pete and the Cabbie

Check out this post at petebeck.com: ... who's the tyrant?

Charting the future, by the real numbers, not by Bush's

Oil production by country for the next few decades. Wind power, anyone?

The real world, not Bush's world

Here's the revised job data, and the retails sales data, from January. Bush's rap about a recovery is fantasy.

Retail sales drop, jobless claims rise, inventories as expected

US retail sales fell posted an unexpected 0.3% decline in January, the first drop since September. Sales in December were revised down to 0.2% from 0.5%. On the employment front, initial jobless claims rose by 6,000 last week to 363,000, defying consensus forecasts of a 11,000 decline. The 4-week average rose by 5,000 to 350,000.
The Bush Administration is seeking to defuse an emerging controversy after White house Chief economic advisor Greg Mankiw praised the economic effects of moving US jobs offshore. Mankiw’s rationale is based on the grounds of resulting wealth to US companies stemming from reduced costs at a time when the White House is attempting to resurrect lost jobs ahead of the elections.

Source: http://www.forexnews.com/

Empire in action

Listen up world! The earth shall be as we wish it to be.

What a revoltin' development this is

Darn. The UN is siding with the Shia about the need for full and free elections. And we thought we could get away with Bush-style democracy, a hybrid of appointment, control and, above all, a favorable entity.

Now, what if the Iraqis ask us to leave? Or maybe they just ask us to stay in our place, stranded in our out-of-town bases? Or maybe we become the enforcers for the Shia government, shooting down rioters who are protesting the Shia rules about women's rights and suppression of the Baathists?

The nightmare has just begun.

Say Ahhhhh Sh*t, Dubya

Can you imagine how hard the White House had to work to find a 30-year-old dental exam? They must really be freaking out over this little scandal, AWOLgate. But is there really a hope that democrats are going to overwhelm the intransigent gullibility of the reactionary right by alleging that Bush shirked his duties in the national guard? Maybe, We can hope. The truth remains that he's a menace now, to our economy, our environment, our civil rights and to our peace and security. He's simply a poor president and we need a better one. Politicians always get sidetracked, distracted. They go tromping around in the rough, instead of taking a drop and moving on. Well, maybe they'll find a few nascar Dads out in the bush -- forgive me -- and bring them back to smoother turf.
Yahoo! News - White House Releases '73 Bush Dental Exam

Greenspan's a dolt

I watched C-Span's testimony today, and while he's a whiz at monetary mumbo-jumbo, he doesn't know shit about anything more macro than data-driven drivel about productivity/incentives to invest/financial shenanigans. When asked about jobs, for example, he drew a blank. When asked point-blank where a jobless American should retrain, he had no answer, none at all.
Representative Barbara Lee of California (my Godess) asked him, "Where are the jobs of the future? What do we tell our kids, who want to play by the rules, where they're going to get jobs?"
To this question, Greenspan said, in essence, I don't know.
Fact is, there was nothing in his testimony that gave heart to anyone that America was going to have a thriving economy an incoming job-seeker.
But, of course, the stock market soared on his testimony, because he said he wasn't going to raise interest rates, meaning that stocks would remain an attractive investment.
Result: The rich get richer. The poor stay poor--and jobless.

The Republicans had better get out the cheese

To entice the rats back on board the ship of state.

"Let's you and them fight."

The US military is planning to pull the majority of its troops out of the cities of Iraq and hand over the security tasks to Iraqi police, while remaining in their secure compounds nearby. In view of the recent spate of attacks on police stations in the major cities, I'm not certain, if I were an Iraqi, that I would take this as a handover of sovereignty so much as a retreat.

Disappearing act

A clear and detailed exposition of Bush's Air Guard record may be found here, including a copy of the original Boston Globe article that raised the question during the 2000 Presidential campaign. Turns out Bush's promise today that he'll turn over his military records to show his attendance at drills during the "missing year" was made once before, about the same time of year four years ago. And no records materialized. Will the media let him off the hook again? I think not. Maybe Faux news will, but the others will chase this story down as part of their chase for ratings. After all--they smell blood in the water too.

Who are those other guys?

Bush's economic predictions--his riff about the benefits of international outsourcing of jobs, about the long-term benefits of privatizing social security, and particularly about the amount of new-job creation in the upcoming year--are absolutely nuts.

We've already seen one of his job-creation predictions go down the toilet. He told us when his tax-reduction package was passed that it would create 1.7 million jobs in 2003; instead we lost 53,000. And as has been noted elsewhere, the jobs that have been lost are in the high-paid fields (manufacturing, high-tech), to be replaced by retail and service jobs at much lower wages.

I'm waiting for one of the Democrats to drag out the "voodoo economics" slogan from Reagan's days in office. In the meantime, I like this comment by Senator Kerrey: "I've got a feeling this report was prepared by the same people who brought us the intelligence on Iraq."

Who are those guys?

It's reported today that Bush's low approval numbers in the polls have rebounded since he gave the interview that was telecast by NBC, not much of a bounce, but still...
He got a big bounce when Saddam was captured, and the biggest bounces on 9/11/01 and in March 2003 when he invaded Iraq.
I can only conclude that there is a large segment of the voting public who swing from disapproval to approval of Bush when he's making war or lying. My baseline question, however, is this: How can a sensible person change his mind about the President of the United States depending on what occurs from day to day? Are 20 percent of us that vacuous?
Don't answer that.

the bottom line

I've just been browsing through the transcript of the interview that the president gave NBC over the weekend. It's interesting stuff. As expected, it underlines the self-centered arrogance that has come to dominate this administration. I suspect the man is so out of touch with reality, he wouldn't know it from a mission to mars. He may not even know he's been misleading us. What am I saying? Of course he does. A lot of people believe Bush's slop, but not me and not him. Hopefully, not you.

Here's my favorite quote:
"I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind." Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Taking the gloves off

This site tracks the ongoing investigation of Bush's record in the Air National Guard, and has uncovered a complete copy of a "torn record" that had been submitted by Bush some years ago to show him earning "points" toward discharge from the guard. Now we see the whole document, and its contents are revealing. It's too long a tale to recite here, but CalPundit has it all.

All Hat and No Cattle--redux

Business Week has analyzed Bush's claim that he will reduce the deficit by one-half in five years and has reacted with the above quotation. This publication, widely read in the financial community, is solidly conservative, rarely anti-Bush, but cannot allow his economic shenanigans to continue. They use words like "misleading" and "illusory" to describe Bush's economic predictions, and are plainly unhappy with his free-spending policies.
Let's hope they convince their fellow fiscal conservatives to stay home on election day.

Politicizing intelligence

The Administration's still at it, only more obviously than ever. This NYT times report about a supposed memo by an Iraqi insurgent soliciting al Qaeda's support for a civil war in Iraq was handed to the reporter by an official of the occupation. It contains a description of the state of the insurgency, calls for assistance, remonstrations about the power of the US Army and its unremitting resolve.
My first reaction was that the memo's a fake, which so many similar leaks have been. My second was that if it's for real, why would it be leaked, except for Bush's political gain? Isn't this precisely the kind of information that we don't want the adversary to know we have? Bush, the president who touts himself as the most capable of handling the war on terr'r, is apparently willing to subvert his troops' efforts when it benefits his chance for reelection.
But then I already knew that.

Bush Says Invasion of Iraq Was Necessary

I was encouraged to channel surf by as president Bush was facing off with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Pres tonight. I wasn’t encouraged enough to watch the whole thing, because it was the same old Texas Two Step, boot-scootin’ around the truth. But I think it’s lovely that he feels compelled to go on the defensive in the media. It shows he’s becoming cognizant of the political corner into which he’s painted himself.

[Link.]

The Gray Lady smells blood in the water

Okay, so the metaphors are jumbled. Point is, finally the NYT editorial page challenges Bush, calling his "independent commission" a political ploy. Not a scathing attack, but a measured one that cuts through the rhetoric and concludes that by limiting the scope of the commission, Bush in effect leaves it to each of us to decide whether he warped the intelligence to suit his political ends.
Well, so be it.

The dog is begining to wag the tail

This Reuters article about the sluggish job picture states what has probably been felt for months, that the continued absence of jobs may drag the other components of the recovery down, in particular consumer spending. As people lose faith in the security of jobs, they tighten their belts, with the result that instead of continuing to run up credit card debt, they cut expenditures and hence demand.
An unstated fear is deflation: the awful prospect of sustained price decline due to lack of demand, which becomes a vicious circle as layoffs then feed the lack of spending by consumers. With the number of personal bankruptcies at record levels, there's nowhere for the consumer to go but cutting back on expenditures. This economy may indeed be in for a long, hard slog.

Short memories

Tenet's sales pitch about the quality of intelligence (measured by the contents of his prewar "estimate" against the now-available evidence "on the ground") simply places in starker relief the need to inquire into the "policy-makers'" use of intelligence rather than its gathering. Besides the obvious misuse by Cheney, Rumsfeld and, most notably, Bush in their public pronouncements, two particular items come to mind, items I'm shocked that I forgot (and so far too have the pundits).

The first was buried in the news during the weeks before the much-hyped appearance by Colin Powell at the UN where he presented a dog-and-pony show to spur the Security Council into voting for an invasion-justifying resolution. The UN inpsectors were on the ground, dutifully chasing from site to site in their white vans, coming up empty, while Blix was complaining to anyone who'd listen that the US wasn't sharing with the inspectors the information that it claimed it had to prove Saddam's noncompliance. Finally, a few days before Powell's UN appearance, the US gave Blix a verbal report of selected sites (I recall that Blix was appalled at such a lax, unorthodox procedure). The conclusion many drew from this sequence was that the US either was unsure of its intelligence or was witholding it so that the inspectors would fail, allowing the US to attack.
The second item followed shortly thereafter, when the inspectors hopped into their vans to follow the leads the US finally handed over. One lead, to a supposed weapons factory in the north of Iraq, turned out to be a crumbling village. Others were equally false, so much so that one of the inspectors called the US intelligence, "garbage."
During all of this time, Scott Ritter, a former US Marine and weapons inspector, was telling us (although the news outlets wouldn't listen) that which we now know: The the WMD Iraq had once possessed had been destroyed or discovered in the weapons inspection regime in the nineties.
If I were Tenet I'd be pissed off too. Bush and his buddies ignored and purposely witheld the caveats and uncertainties in the CIA's estimate in their inexorable march to war and now, as before, they're making him the fallguy.

For another (and a more fluent) presentation of this position, check out this essay in Time Online.

It's the jobs, stupid

Two much-anticipated Labor Department numbers that I just heard on TV. The first is the increase in the number of jobs in the month of January: 112,000. The second is the upward revision of the dismal number of new jobs from December: from 1,000 to 12,000. Both announcements were disappointing to those who believed that Bush's tax-cutting "economic stimulus" would translate into job creation.
The 112,000 figure for January fell 60,000 short of the prediction of forecasters, and was 40,000 short of the number of new jobs needed merely to keep pace with the number of new workers entering the labor force each month. There will of course be some trumpeting of the 112,000 figure as being the highest in many months, but those months were awful. In fact, the figure demonstrates that the stimulus has translated into increased profits for companies and increased money in the hands of the rich, but not into real recovery for the workers, i.e., jobs. (In addition, of course, the figures for workers' real income shows them losing against inflation, as is noted in the immediately preceding post.)
The second figure, the upward revision of December's new-jobs figure to 12,000 confirms how dreadful that month really was for new employment. It was thought that the revision might be substantial, that the 1,000 figure was way off the mark. But no, we're now certain, December was indeed terrible, as was the 47,000 figure for the preceding month.
These two announcements gave rise, immediately, to an upward spurt in the cost of a euro against the dollar. The traders know what Bush apologists still deny: That the "recovery" of the US economy is hype, and the GDP increases are due to consumer borrowing and warmaking. Classic smoke and mirrors.

Speaking of Numbers ...

Speaking of numbers, is it my imagination, or has it been a couple of days since the number of US ... kids ... solidiers ... killed in Iraq has gone up? And if so, what should one suppose this might portend?

Behind the numbers

The following brief analysis from the ForexNews ("foreign exchange") website puts into perspective the jobs/income/recovery picture as it relates to the common worker. Not a pretty picture.

"Are Payrolls or GDP the Anomaly?" by Jes Black
A general rule of thumb in economics, known as Okun's Law, states that a 1% increase in GDP leads to a 0.4% increase in employment. But the primary flaw is that changes in productivity undermine this relationship because output depends on both the amount of inputs used and the level of technology.

Moreover, when economists like Okun peered into the economy in the 1980s and 1990s a not so subtle shift was already taking place towards a global economy driven by finance and technology. Inflation has since grown quiescent while growth can be manufactured through lower borrowing costs. Yet the real economy seems to suffer since the shift from selling tangible goods to a service economy has resulted in exploding deficits and jobs outsourcing recently estimated at 500,000. Real growth has in fact been substituted for financial growth and the effects they have on employment are now noticeable.

Slow Recovery in Payrolls

Tomorrow's labor report is expected to show a sharp 165k-175k gain in payrolls, which is hardly surprising following the anemic December report and the strong advance in Q3 and Q4 GDP. This would complement the increase in the household survey while rising payrolls and record-setting gains in GDP will likely be heralded as the missing link in the recovery story. But since many of the jobs created so far have been in lower wage service sector, ambiguous self-employment and government jobs the actual benefit to the economy may be less significant.

The unemployment rate is expected to remain steady at 5.7% in January. But the real unemployment rate would be higher if it were adjusted for decreases in both hours per worker and labor force participation. Since each of these factors contributes to falling output, because of rising productivity last year's second half surge in US growth is the anomaly, not the jobs picture.

In fact, much of the second half recovery was financed through record homeowner refinancings, tax cuts and deficit spending. But for a US-centric global economy saturated with overcapacity, a slow, steady rise in employment and balanced GDP growth is the most logical path as the world struggles to find a more sustainable means of consuming domestic production.

October Surprise?

This is just the latest of the predictions that Osama will be captured before the November election. We know that Bush is capable of anything, and we know that Reagan plotted with the Iranians to delay release of the hostages until after he defeated Carter. So, why will Osama's election-eve capture be a surprise?

Is Knight-Ridder piling on?

Bush's leadership is in question, says this august wire service piece. It details Bush's recent reversals, citing polls that show that Kerry's more trusted than Bush as a leader. Fun reading.

I'm baaack--and Tenet's in a groove.

Okay, after weeks (seems like years) of hassling about a switchover to cable hookup from DSL, I'm finally in business bigtime. My posts will accordingly be potent, incisive and, most tellingly, constant. Starting with my observations about Tenet's speech today at Georgetown (one of my alma maters, BTW).
This guy's a stump-speaker, no doubt. Actually, a car salesman, presenting a tick-list of items with flair and verve. His bottom line (a phrase he used repeatedly): The pre-war assessment ("Estimate") by his minions was right on, or close enough, including his concession that there was no evidence of an "imminent threat" to the US from any of this.
It will take some time to sort through his assertions, but for me the bottom line is this. It wasn't the fault of the intelligence community that we ended up with egg on our face and blood on our hands. It's absolutely clear that the fault lies with Bush/Cheney, that they'd made up their minds to take over Iraq and weren't going to be swayed by the equivocations and uncertainties of the intelligence professionals' report.
Thus, the task of any new inquiry into the "intelligence failure" should include the misuse of intelligence by the politicians, not just lapses in the gathering and presentation of data by the spooks.
After all, it was Bush who launched this war. It's his desk where the buck stops.

All That Arises

Please see John’s comment to Let me get this straight... on Monday. He’s got it right.

Congress is corrupt, and I’ll add gutless. But then what if I added a corrupt and gutless congress is exactly what a corrupt and gutless populace deserves? Are we not made for television? This week, the American people are much more interested in discussing Janet Jackson's Jubblies than the unremitting meltdown of the economy or the high crimes of our literally unbelievable president.

"Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
--William Shakespeare Julius Caesar I.ii.

Hardly a liberal rag

BusinessWeek lambastes Bush's budget, spelling out in detail the fallacies of its assumptions and projections. The article's title says it all: "Lies, damned lies and Bush's budget."

Let me get this straight...

The Administration's "war on terr'r" includes attacking any group that we pronounce to be a "terrorist organization," even if the group's alleged terrorist activities aren't directed against the US? Are our soldiers supposed to die in such a cause? Where is the constitutional requirement of a declaration of war? Where will such a policy end? What have we (including the Congress) wrought?

A brief respite

Not from the matters of moment in the world, but in my posting. I'm switching to cable connection and have been struggling to get online. Hard to keep quiet as Bush runs us farther into the mire, but in a little bit I'm be posting like a madman (as usual)>

A night already devoid of stars

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.… Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. ”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The rich get richer and ...

After sustained "recovery" from recession, check out these numbers reflecting the income levels of those whose incomes increased versus those whose didn't. Somebody's gotta wake up the Americans who're financing the wealthy and the corporate robber barons.

If not me (and you), who? If not now, when?

Bush's Blue Dress

"...the Bush administration is complicit in arguably the greatest scandal in U.S. history."
says by Robert Scheer in today's LA Times.

It's time to talk about impeachment.

[Link]

I hate to say I told you so, but I don't

There's a legion of my acquaintances who'll confirm, as will the impenetrable archives of this weblog, that seven-plus months ago I predicted that Cheney would be dumped from Bush's 2004 ticket. My reasoning was that by doing so (with the fact-based cover of Cheney's weak vascular system) Bush could dampen the Democrats' summer nomination festival with speculation of who Bush's running mate might be. Elizabeth Dole? If male, perhaps Colin Powell? To drive the Democrats totally crazy, maybe Condi? Of course Bush will end up choosing a Christian Wasp, but no matter. He'll have shared the summer headlines with whoever the Democrats nominate.

Well, some may call me crazy, but here's the first of a cascade of drumbeats.

How much traction? Not even a rotation

I wondered, in my post entitled "Let's see if this story has legs," whether the alarm expressed by the US Comptroler General at the billowing deficits in US trade and federal budget, would find press coverage. Answer: No. Indeed, even Billmon, a sound reporter who's just finished covering the Davos conference, didn't remark on it in his departing post.
He did offer this cleverly incisive paragraph on the subject of America's excesses, however:

"The problem in trying to get a read on what's really going on -- and what kind of consensus is likely to emerge among the global power elite about the USA's vulnerability on the dollar-deficit question -- is the same as at every conference of this sort: The Americans say the sky is the limit, the Europeans say the sky is falling, and the Asians, whose views are in many ways the most important, say as little as possible."

comments are back!

The comments function has returned to our blog. Cry havoc!

Business Week on business

I'm posting this sanguine article from Business Week, not because of the accuracy of its prediction of a wholesale business upturn (including jobs), but so that later on I can say, I Told You So. The fact is, that nothing in the data recited in the article is supportive of a surge in meaningful jobs in the US. Check it out. The article touts higher stock prices based on higher corporate earnings (all so far obtained by belt-tightening measures and longer working hours by existing employees) and a spate of mergers and acquisitions, which usually lead to job-cutting and downsizing of unprofitable segments of the merged businesses. Not a whisper in the article about a basis for meaningful job growth except the usual exhortation that where there's money, there must be more work.

Not these days, not in America. We have no labor unions, no worker leverage, but rather a glut of unemployed and underemployed workers who have no might to demand decent pay and fair benefits. This recovery, unlike others, will benefit Bush's corporate donors, but will leave behind the people of America, the voters.

Let's hope they remember to register to vote when they pick up their welfare and unemployment checks.

(If you want another take on the future of well-paid jobs in America, check this article in the NYT.)

I know only fellow-travelers read this blog

But in case it snares a Google-errant, a Republican searching for "All That Arises" on a Vegas crap table or a porn site, do this one thing before you surf back to la la land. Read the last few posts by Riverbend, just so you may hereafter pause when you hear from Bush/Cheney/Powell/Rumsfeld/Rice/Bremer how swimmingly we're reconstructing Iraq.

Okay, I'm rolling up my sleeves, Dean-style

Howard Dean--he may not be the Democrats' nominee, but he's sure as hell their conscience--is absolutely right when he says that the only way to beat Bush is to empower (that is to say, to deliver--by "any means necessary"--to the polls in November) the enormous numbers of new voters who are--cutting through the bs here--of darker skin tones than we whitie liberals. We have the message, for God's sake.

Here's what's happening to jobs among young black males. Startling, eh? You'd think there'd be riots in the streets. But no. What there is is apathy. The black vote, overwhelmingly Democratic, will be once again overwhelmingly silent unless we--that's you and me and the candidate and his energies---can grab them by their necks, by their souls, by their instinct for self-preservation and self-fulfillment, and get them to vote!

Same thing with the brown vote. I've talked about the Nascar Dads. They're a hopelessly ignorant bunch, whose idea of "the news" is Hannity, Limbaugh and Faux News. No way to change their minds between now and November. Maybe never. They may be the residual blight of the failed capitalist system.

But their brown counterparts, whom I call the "Oakland Raider Dads," the Latino males with backward-worn ballcaps and big trucks. What about them? They're no better off under Bush (they're worse off, actually, under his new "let them eat cake" immigration policy, which allows the labor market in the border states to be swamped by low-paid foreigners). In fact, Latino males, many of whom react favorably to Bush's "macho-don't fuck with me, dude" attitude toward foreign policy are the hardest hit by his economic slant. He cuts programs in education, health care, transportation, daycare, insurance--all of which mean less income to the lower-paid segment of our culture, i.e., the newer arrivals, the browner skinned Americans.

Here's the deal: If we're going to Beat Bush it will only be by swamping the polls with new voters: blacks, browns, youths, who've not voted in earnest before. Otherwise, my fellow citizens, it's Four More Years.

The lunatics are running the asylum--and this voice of sanity responds

Stephen, a new contributor to this blog, speaks the following truths:

Keep standing up to the lies.

One way to subvert the system is to say to people, "I am really afraid that
they're (those damn liberals!) going to try to impeach Bush for all of the
conflict of interest laws his administration has broken. What can we do to
keep him and his cabinet out of jail?" This tactic of course makes the point
that he's a crook while assuring them you're on poor George W's side!

Ten Thoughts on How To Defeat Terrorism! (To Mr. Bush and his puppet
masters)

1. Make friends with the Arab world. This is done by having a balanced
foreign policy toward the Middle East. It also means reducing foreign aid to
Israel and not being their lap dog. Do you know Israel has a national health
plan that covers all its citizens? Wish we could afford one!
2. Seek alignment with Europe - stop insulting their intelligence and
bullying them into supporting ridiculous policies. Better to have lots of
friends - one day we'll need them!
3. Foreign aid and food are not supposed to be wielded like weapons.
Supporting bad leaders and toppling elected ones is unhealthy for us and the
world.
4. Review the behavior, conflicts and demise of all previous imperialistic
civilizations. Look in mirror. Repeat.
5. Stop using Christianity as a club. Muslims and others find the modern
Crusade worrisome and zealots find it an easy target for their hatred.
Church and state are separate for a purpose. Don't suppose that intelligent
people don't notice the huge downside of blending the two.
6. Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars creating Fortress
America, get the best minds on Arab culture and politics to work for the
State Dept. and build bridges of trust and friendship with this large slice
of humanity. Remember: they're not evil - we're just acting evil.
7. Keep in mind that there is a big gap between the industrialized northern
nations and the southern developing counties. Unless the wealthy nations
have a game plan to truly encourage and economically develop the Third
World, we'll always be a target for the discontented.
8. Eliminate childish, shortsighted ways of looking at reality: the war on
drugs is a joke, the war on terror is destined to fail and cheating other
countries out of resources is institutionalized imperialism.
9. Paste this to your bathroom mirror: The U.S. Military-Industrial Complex
creates more danger in the world every day than every 'terrorist' group or
nation combined.
10. Our elected officials are temporary custodians of our nation and its
citizens' trust. They will quickly pass, their actions will be judged
against time and the future will unfold without their influence.
-------------------
Interesting Quote:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of
this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should
take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can
compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of
defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty
may prosper together.
--- A soldier said that. His name was Dwight D. Eisenhower
http://www.luminet.net/~tgort/ike.htm

Davos Meets the Blogosphere

In this pithy analysis, Billmon reacts to a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that discussed the impact and future of blogging upon journalism and information dissemination in general. His demand and mine: Hands off the blogosphere, corporations!

Outsourcing: The uneven playing field

This article is one of hundreds lately addressing the enormous impact on the US labor force of "outsourcing" of relatively well-paying jobs abroad. Ireland makes the most money from such jobs, followed closely by India. As I know from having recently called the 1-800 number to get a fixit for this laptop, New Delhi is the early-morning center for HP customer-service reps. (Who were polite, knowledgable and almost intelligible.)

So--Bush complains about uneven playing fields in manufactured goods, and as a result imposes tariffs to protect US manufacturers (read contributors). But meanwhile jobs flow abroad by the thousands, with not a peep from this Administration. It's part of the globalization of all forms of capital and labor, it is claimed; a natural result of the world being shrunk by quick and ready transport and communication. The American worker (not a Bush contributor) can suffer, but not a corporation. No siree, not when they save money by having their phones answered in India for one-fifth the expense. And we wonder why this is a jobless recovery.

A view from across the pond and a view from this side

A fine survey of the recent spate of books reviling Bush's foreign policy has been presented in the NYT, by an American residing now in France, with this conclusion:
"Though I have lived abroad for many years and regard myself as hardened to anti-Americanism, I confess I was taken aback to have my country depicted, page after page, book after book, as a dangerous empire in its last throes, as a failure of democracy, as militaristic, violent, hegemonic, evil, callous, arrogant, imperial and cruel."

I'm an American residing in America and I'm here to tell ya, I'm taken aback that the reviewer's taken aback. And it doesn't take book learnin' to know whazzup in America. It just takes a few afternoons.

As I've said before, I do an hour-long "peace march" on Saturdays with a handful of like-minded folks, and then about three afternoons a week I station myself at a well-traveled intersection here in SB with my protest sign that contains on one side an anti-war chant and on the other (recently revised) an anti-Bush message. I receive an equal number of favorable honks (including furtive displays of "peace signs") and furious glares accompanied, sometimes, by middle-finger signs.

The most troubling reactions, however, are those where the driver hangs out of the window and yells (this happened twice today, about average for an hour), "God Bless American and George W. Bush." I shit you not.

I'm not taken aback at how America is perceived abroad. Just like Nazi Germany was perceived.

Let's see if this story has legs

The United States Comptroller General--also head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office--has expressed alarm at the budget deficits that this administration is incurring and projecting. His report is a direct contradiction of the Bush/Cheney policy that "deficits don't matter," and he predicts an economic cataclysm if the tax cuts are made permanent, as Bush sought in his State of the Union message.

This isn't a political hack speaking. It's the man what holds the purse.

Worthy of a whisper in a major news outlet, this alarm? Let's see.

The ace in the hole: Dick Cheney

As I was out at the Dolphin Fountain in SB this afternoon with my protest sign, one side of which reads, "Anybody -- Absolutely Anybody -- But Bush!", I had a thought. Since the opponents are presenting a fear-based campaign, why not equalize it with our own?

The target wouldn't be Bush, scary as he is, because too many duped Americans think he's a nice, stupid guy. But Cheney. He's pretty much conceded to be the power behind the throne and he's not only scary, he's unlikeable as hell.

So, I think (in addition to a wealth of positive campaigning) the Democrats should tee off on Cheney with slogans like, "I'm scared of Dick Cheney. Aren't you?" and "Cheney runs this country. Four more years?" and "Cheney will give us four more wars." And "Cheney/Bush: Four more wars." I've just begun to spin slogans, but I think I'm onto something.

Finally, a syndicated writer understands

This article, by a British writer, is the first I've read that tries to get at the core purpose of bin Laden's activities. Step one, make the Muslim nations mad at us; step two, unite them in a holy war against us. With Bush in the White House, bin Laden has an administration that furthers his aims. He'll attack our soil again before the November election if he feels it will further Bush's re-election, and won't if he feels it won't. In that sense, Bush and bin Laden are allied. While we watch them destroy us.

Am I the only one

who's noticed Bush's hypocrisy in calling for numerous "faith-based initiatives," and for a constitutional amendment to disallow same-sex marriages in his State of the Union Address, while at the same time demanding that the "democracies" in Afghanistan and Iraq be entirely secular? Apparently, to the "religious right" religion in government is all right so long as it's the correct religion.

From the mouths of babes

My fellow AOL subscribers are hardly a sophisticated lot, and many of them are unabashed right-wingers. Thus, most "Members' Comments" aren't worthy of quoting. But tonight's is a beaut, a comment on Bush's State of the Union Address: "The best part of his speech was when he said that the Patriot Act would expire in a year."

World without end, amen

One cartoonist's take on Armageddon. (Takes a while to load.)

Somehow this Madness ...

Somehow this madness must cease. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam and the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.

Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam
Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
April 1967
At Manhattan's Riverside Church

Partly Cloudy

Look, it's partly cloudy in Baghdad. The weather is very much like it is here in Santa Barbara . I guess the difference here is a must less chance of thunderous midmorning explosions. Which is good, because I just don't have the clothes for it.

Sen Biden of Delaware says that a lot of Iraqis are pissed at America because, while they were so amazed that we could blow away Saddams regime, we can't get the power on and the water flowing, etc. And we didn't stop the looting until it was moot. I'm not suggesting that these are the same Iraqis blowing stuff up, just that the Bush Administration was abjectly unprepared to follow through after the Shock and Awe was over.

A new site

The Columbia School of Journalism has just launched CampaignDesk, a new website/blog that will track news stories during the upcoming election. They'll comment on poor or unfair stories, do followups, and otherwise act as ombudsman of the media. If this first day's entries are an indication of its worth, it's worthy.

It's still the debt and the jobs

Okay, so I may have misperceived the impact of the recent drop in the value of the dollar against the euro. It turns out that the same folks--in the 1980's called arbitragers, now unnamed but equally amoral--who manipulate the world's currencies have lately stemmed the dollar's decline. The dollar may resume its descent based on fundamentals--the wild US trade imbalance, its massive budget deficits--but currency traders are most attuned to day-to-day hints, hedges and speeches such as those by members of the Federal Reserve Bank and international agencies that are bound to protect their nations' currencies, speeches that have lately caused the traders to predict an upward blip of the dollar against the euro, softening its decline, averting a pre-panic alarm.
But the dollar is bouyed even more solidly by the purchase of American companies' stock and US debt instruments by foreigners, mostly Japanese and Chinese, who own an incredibly huge amount of these securities. They have little long-term interest in America's financial wellbeing, except as it may support their ownership of dollar-based debt and assets.
They're not fools, however. Even though, as holders of trillions of dollars in US currency, treasury notes and corporate stock, they surely don't relish a decline in the value of their holdings, they also don't want to be the last passengers off the Titanic.
If it should occur--as might happen if the US economy continues to waddle through months of unemployment and underemployment--that the dollar is confirmed to be fundamentally weak (that is, truly the currency of a failing national economy, overly beholden to the support of others) these dollar-based-asset holding nations might decide to sell their dollars and debt all at once to beat the decline that they see as inevitable. At that point, all bets are off, and we could well see a global dollar massacre.
It could happen any moment. All it takes is for the world to realize, as the next few months' figures might well reveal, that the potency of the American economy is a borrow-based fiction. Once the first foreign investor sniffs that out, watch out. Time to move to Canada, Sweden or the proverbial desert island and leave the rest of the world to fight over scraps.

Spin, spin, everywhere spin

When reading the news these days, I must remember to bear in mind the motivation of the entity that disseminates it. Faux News, of course, has an ideological bent that renders its "news" tainted, a taint readily discernible. More difficult to remain aware of, however, is the spin that is applied even by so-called "hard news" outlets, such as those that report economic developments.
Take for example, this story from today's Dow Jones wire, reporting the status of inflation as recently reported by the Labor Department.

The "gist" of the story is stated in the opening paragraphs thus:

"The consumer price index rose a scant 0.2% in December, reversing 0.2% decline in November, the Labor Department said Thursday. The closely watched core index, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.1%. In annual terms, consumer prices rose 1.9% in 2003, the smallest rate in two years."

An upbeat development, it would seem, until one reads to the final paragraph of the story, where the truly significant statistic--the fact that impacts most Americans--appears.

"In a separate report, the Labor Department said average weekly earnings of U.S. workers, adjusted for inflation, declined 0.6% in December as a 0.2% increase in average hourly earnings was more than offset by a 0.6% decline in average weekly hours and a 0.2% gain in the CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers. Over the course of 2003, average weekly earnings rose 1.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis."

So, what really happened in December was that there was a tiny uptick in the price of consumer goods (the CPI), an identical increase (0.2%) in average hourly earnings--a wash--but a decrease in workers' weekly earnings because of fewer working hours. The result: A net loss of workers' purchasing power over the last month of 2003. This decline capped a year in which workers' earnings grew a "scant" (to borrow the word from the opening paragraphs of the article) 1.7%, which is actually one-tenth of one percent less than the increase in consumer prices (1.8%) over the year. So the working consumer ended the year with a worse month than the year as a whole, and the year was one in which the worker consumer lost ground against prices for consumer goods.

The upbeat tone of the article can be accounted for by Dow Jones' bias. It's in the business of business, of trading in stocks and commodities, of benefiting from borrowings and investments and of reporting same. If the news is downbeat, its various functions lag. Moral: Read the entire article--including the bottom "graph"--and more than one article, on any subject. Or--don't read anything. Just look around you and see what's happening.

Do you remeber your Al-Gebra?

Not only is the Administration on the lookout for the dreaded Al-manac, now there's an even deadlier source of terror. Enjoy.

Imagine Our Surprise

President Bush, whom we all thought was a sure thing for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, has been Accused of Waging Unnecessary War in Iraq. Of all the unmitigated audacity. It's those irrepressible Kennedys again. They just can't help but poke fun at the kids from Skull & Bones.

Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy said Bush had capitalized on fear from the September 11 attacks to put a "spin on the truth to justify a war that could well become one of the worst blunders in more than two centuries of American foreign policy."

Aw come one, Ed. The president's gotta cowboy up once in a while, open him up a barrel or two of good old down home Texas Whupass. What good is being president if you can't find you some terrists, flush 'em outta their holes, head 'em up and round 'em up and run 'em to ground and such? As long as he takes care of the economy, the enviroment and health care, let's just let him have some fun.

U.S. Soldiers' Suicide Rate Is Up in Iraq

Erik and I were discussing just this afternoon what we perceive to be a decline in readership for this blog. One possibility, we said, might be that an anti-war blog isn't a lot of fun. We'll this damn sure isn't going to help. If we could oppose this war with Michael Jackson jokes, we'd do it, but the truth isn't quite that bizarre. The truth is that The Suicide Rate for U.S. Soldiers' in Iraq Is Up.

Support our Troops: Bring them home from that hellhole.

Comments function fubar

It seems our need comments function isn't working. I checked the site for BlogSpeak, which provides that function, and found the following message:

BlogSpeak is currently down because the bastards that host it decided to suspend my account. I do not know as of yet when this situation will be resolved. If you don't want any JavaScript errors on your pages, take the code off for the time being. Thanks for your patience.

So I guess we'll give it a little time and see what happens. If you want to send a comment in the mean time, use one of the e-mail links (our names) in the left hand column. Thanks.

blogspeak

Bush buck passing

In Southern Iraq, the Shia "Pope"--al Talibani--is demanding popular elections instead of the local caucuses that the US has decided will choose the members of the group that will draft the constitution and proceed to "democracy." He has threatened violence if his call is not heeded, and the US isn't heeding it, so far.

In the north, the Kurds are demanding autonomy, including control over Tikrit and its oil, while the US is demurring, deferring, hoping they can get the hell out of Iraq before the place catches fire--and hoping it won't catch fire until after the November election.

In the central Sunni section the US is hoping to suppress the populace enough to stifle dissent and insurgency until July 1, so that they can announce a relinquishment of political power, with trumpets and CNN coverage, while maintaining the hundred-plus thousands of soldiers on the outskirts of Baghdad to enforce US interests and prohibit anti-US activities.

We, Bush opponents, can only hope that one or all of Bush's plans goes awry, and that it does so far enough before the fall election to reveal what a fraud this invasion and occupation actually is.

Come to the party, NYT

Three months ago (so long ago that the post isn't still available in our archives), I pointed out the likely illegitimacy of the Iraq Coalition Provisional Administration's privatization of the nation's industries, as well as other acts it decreed in furtherance of "economic reform." There was a spate of analyses at the time, including a detailed essay by Naomi Klein, that questioned the legality, under international law, of such broad alterations of the laws of the occupied country, based on the provisions of the Geneva Convention, and otherwise founded in international law.

Now, finally, the NYT has seen the light. It has interviewed a handful of international lawyers and professors who agree with Naomi Klein and (I say this with all humility--not) me.
Soooo--Tribune Bremer has once again screwed up. Any deal the CPA makes now to attract outside investment in Iraq is subject, say these experts, to being rescinded by the duly constituted government of Iraq, should one come into existence.

Would you buy a car from this man? Would you invest your bucks in Iraq? Yeah, maybe, but not while the US is in charge. So much for Bush's plan of bringing economic prosperity to Iraq. Turns out they've got to do it themselves. It's the law.

It's jobs, stupid

December's numbers are out, and it's clear that whatever impact the tax cuts may have had on GDP and other features of the nation's economic picture, the employment figures reveal that jobs are in the toilet. Not just the pitiful number of jobs created, but the quality of jobs in terms of security and pay and benefits. We're talking about an economy that's adding temp positions and burger-flipping jobs in the stead of solid employment--full-time, responsible, vested and well paid. A large segment of the American workforce has become transient, migrant workers, and the rest of them have no jobs at all.

Yes, the GDP will get another blip-boost when hefty income tax refunds are mailed out to taxpayers, the result of the lower rate that was applied to the last several months of their wages. But that will translate, as did the one-time refunds in May, into retirement of their astounding personal debt or into a brief consumption bounce (of products made in China or Korea however).

And then? A dramatic downward slide of the jobs figures, and personal income figures, through the summer until the November election. And there's nothing Bush can do about it.

I can't wait.